[Box Backup] Unclogging data store

[Waldemar Augustyn]

Per Thomsen wrote:

> On 11/21/05 6:44 PM, Waldemar Augustyn wrote:
>
>>
>> This must have happened millions of time.  My data store became full 
>> very quickly because I forgot to exclude media files from backup such 
>> as mpeg, avi, etc.  I thought that was no problem.  I just added the 
>> exlcusion and SIGHUP'ed the client.  Unfortunately, the data store 
>> seems to think these files are supposed to remain there and does not 
>> delete them.
>
> It will, though, when the space is needed for newer files. Cleanup of 
> the backup store does not happen until the space is needed, AFAIK. I 
> don't use a lot of regexes, though, so I can't say with 100% certainty.
>
>> How do I purge them short of actually deleting them on my computers 
>> and waiting for data store to sync up?  Thanks.
>
> If you are hell-bent on getting rid of the files right away, I would 
> clear out the store on the server, and restart the backups. That will 
> stop the files from backing up the next time, and they won't be backed 
> up on the server. That also means that you don't have to delete any 
> files on the client machine.

What confuses me is the status indicating no deleted files:

                  Account ID: 00000555
              Last object ID: 42934
                 Blocks used: 2806701 (10963.68Mb)
    Blocks used by old files: 265 (1.04Mb)
Blocks used by deleted files: 0 (0.00Mb)
  Blocks used by directories: 5055 (19.75Mb)
            Block soft limit: 3145728 (12288.00Mb)
            Block hard limit: 3407872 (13312.00Mb)
         Client store marker: 1132633067000000

A good 6Gigs or more here are consumed by the mpeg files.  I don't know 
the internals, but I can easily imagine how these files may remain stuck 
there forever since they have made it to the backup legitimately and 
have never been deleted, just filtered out. 

Separately from that, I agree the use of REs causes more confusion and 
uncertainty than the additional power vs good old wild card is worth 
it.   But I do not want to complain too much.  This is easily the best 
modern backup I can find, so I am hoping for the best and counting on 
continual evolution toward better usability.

>
> What you're proposing won't work, because the deleted files on the 
> client will be retained on the server, as a precaution. That's one of 
> the features of Box: you can recover deleted files; even files you 
> deleted a while back. This is of course subject to the files not bing 
> purged as a part of making space for new files.
>
> HTH.
>
> Thanks,
> Per
>